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just that you have a newborn for your avatar. i know what you mean about life vs person. im a sucker for any shred of irony.

Ah. Lol. Yeah but he was planned. (For a long time.) But if you really want Irony, I'm adopted. I met my Bio mom when I was 20. She burst into tears when she saw me and then told me she'd tried to abort me... Twice.

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Of course it's life. Hell, the sperm & the egg are life too. Still not a person.

Not really, and I've always thought of a fetus as not being an official life until it can live on its own, but the way we fawn over the possibility of life on another planet, even a bacterium, just made me see how differently we treat life here when it's all around (or in) us.

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Ah. Lol. Yeah but he was planned. (For a long time.) But if you really want Irony, I'm adopted. I met my Bio mom when I was 20. She burst into tears when she saw me and then told me she'd tried to abort me... Twice.

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...someone posted this on facebook and I honestly can't give them a good answer.

"Why is a bacterium on Mars considered life when something with a heartbeat here on Earth isn't?"

It's the first time the pro lifers have put it to me in a way that made me think "Hmmmm...."

"Life" is not the issue. Life begins and ends all around us, and every step you take, you're killing millions of "life" in many different forms. You're constantly inhaling life. You have foreign life in your body right now that your blood cells are attacking and killing to keep you healthy.

The issue is personhood, and the rights that go with it. Do we grant that bacterium on Mars the right to free speech, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Do we give them the vote? No, because they aren't people. Nor are embryos. Future people, yes, but they are not people. Just as a child is a future adult; do we give a child all the same rights as an adult? No, we don't. And we don't give an embryo all the same rights as an adult, or a child, or a person.

If you want to get literal and talk about the actual definition of life and why a bacteria and embryo are different; a bacteria is self sustaining and can reproduce.

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Not really, and I've always thought of a fetus as not being an official life until it can live on its own, but the way we fawn over the possibility of life on another planet, even a bacterium, just made me see how differently we treat life here when it's all around (or in) us.

Yeah, but from a biological definition it's life.

As far as life on Mars, if it were the cutest bunnies ever, yet we discovered they pooped a mineral that you could take 1lb of & it would power a city for 1 year, we'd land on Mars in 2017, force feed them prunes & Exlax, then reduce the planet's mass by 1/3rd just for the hell of it.

Dublin: The debate over legalising abortion in Ireland flared on Wednesday after the government confirmed that a woman in the midst of a miscarriage was refused an abortion and died in an Irish hospital after suffering from blood poisoning. Ireland Prime Minister Enda Kenny said he was awaiting findings from three investigations into the death of Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old Indian woman who was 17 weeks pregnant. Her case highlighted the legal limbo in which pregnant women facing severe health problems can find themselves in predominantly Catholic Ireland.

Ireland's constitution officially bans abortion, but a 1992 Supreme Court ruling found the procedure should be legalized for situations when the woman's life is at risk from continuing the pregnancy. Five governments since have refused to pass a law resolving the confusion, leaving Irish hospitals reluctant to terminate pregnancies except in the most obviously life-threatening circumstances.

The vast bulk of Irish women wanting abortions, an estimated 4,000 per year, simply travel next door to England, where abortion has been legal on demand since 1967. But that option is difficult, if not impossible, for women in failing health.

Halappanavar's husband, Praveen, said doctors at University Hospital Galway in western Ireland determined she was miscarrying within hours of her hospitalization for severe pain on Sunday, Oct. 21. He said over the next three days, doctors refused their requests for an abortion to combat her surging pain and fading health.

"Savita was really in agony. She was very upset, but she accepted she was losing the baby," he told The Irish Times in a telephone interview from Belgaum, southwest India. "When the consultant came on the ward rounds on Monday morning, Savita asked if they could not save the baby, could they induce to end the pregnancy? The consultant said: `As long as there is a fetal heartbeat, we can't do anything.' "Again on Tuesday morning ... the consultant said it was the law, that this is a Catholic country. Savita said: 'I am neither Irish nor Catholic' but they said there was nothing they could do," Praveen Halappanavar said.

He said his wife vomited repeatedly and collapsed in a restroom that night, but doctors wouldn't terminate the fetus because its heart was still beating. The fetus died the following day and its remains were surgically removed. Within hours, Savita was placed under sedation in intensive care with blood poisoning and he was never able to speak with her again, her husband said. By Saturday, her heart, kidneys and liver had stopped working. She was pronounced dead early Sunday, Oct. 28.